CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100530004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: September 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100530004-0
STAT
WASHINGTON
BENTSEN
BY PAT REMICK
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
15 September.1983
Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, said Thursday all Centrd1 merican nations lust
be involved in finding a peaceful solution to the turmoil in the region.
But Bentsen, who returned this week from a five-day trip to Nicaragua, El
Salvador and Honduras, said he believes the United States must help in the
negotiating process.
''It has to be all the Central American countries involved,'' he said. -Me
have to assist in the process to try to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.
" We have to bring a stop to this exportation of revolution.''
Bentsen, who toured Central America at the behest of the Central
Intelligence Agency, said he is particularly concerned about human rights
violations in the region and reported Nicaraguan boasts of exporting revolution.
Bentsen, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a congressional
advisor to President Reagan's bipartisan commission on Central America, told
reporters he met with members of rebel groups and was particularly impressed by
some in Nicaragua who were "intelligent, totally committed and risking their
lives.''
I was impressed with some of the contras I met who had been very much
opposed to Somoza and now feel betrayed by the Sandinistas, '' he said, " and
that the democracy they all aspired to is being denied. "
Bentsen said, however, that he does not believe ''it's realistic " that they
can overthrow the government. He also said it is unrealistic to believe the flow
of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador can be stopped.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100530004-0